


Knowing You

by onceandfuturedirection



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Other, pre slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceandfuturedirection/pseuds/onceandfuturedirection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this kinkmeme prompt- Unbeknownst to others, Louis gets extremely lonely at night. He picks up the phone to call a half-asleep Liam, and tries to get him to go over to his apartment without actually asking him directly (because he gets shy). <br/>When the conversation ends, a disappointed Louis thinks that Liam didn’t get the hint, but to his surprise, he shows up at the doorsteps ten minutes later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing You

The problem with being one fifth of the world’s most famous boy band, Louis thought, was that it got so quiet sometimes. Their days were always so busy, Louis knew that he’d never be short of people to talk to, people that were equally if not more desperate than he was to have a conversation. Eager interviewers, excited fans, his family were just a phone call away and of course he was rarely apart from the boys. When the evening hit they’d be out on stage and screaming and singing would fill the air until it was thick with noise. Louis would breathe it in and sing it out and it was glorious. The noise carried on as the boys tumbled off stage, hanging off each other and shouting over the ringing that still filled their ears. 

He was usually alright, though. He’d go home, sing loudly to himself in the shower to drown out the silence magnified by the running water, then go to bed and screw his eyes shut, determinedly ignoring the cold, empty loneliness that lapped at the edges of his consciousness. He wasn’t good, but he was alright. 

But now, watching the van drive away it was different. After 5 months on tour, 5 months without a night spent alone, he wasn’t sure he was ok.  
Even the slam of the door was muted. Louis stood for a moment, lost. Being alone was such a rarity these days he’d almost forgotten what to do, how to function without another person to bounce off, to laugh with, to be the butt of his jokes. He wandered into the kitchen, with vague thoughts of making a cup of tea. An inexplicable sadness came over Louis. He knew he was being pathetic but he just didn’t know what to do with himself.   
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. Nothing from the boys.   
Of course there wasn’t, they weren’t so ridiculously codependent that they couldn’t spend a night apart after constant company for almost half a year. And neither was he, Louis thought determinedly, he was an adult for gods sake. He stalked out of the kitchen and along the corridor abandoning the kettle to boil, every echoing step a reminder. Louis sighed as he reached the door to his bedroom. Perfectly made by the woman who cleaned his flat, his bed was completely devoid of personality. Its pressed sheets and tightly tucked in edges just reeked of alone. After sharing a room with one of the boys (or more if they crashed out on each others’ floors, as they often did) for so long, the solitary bed looked wrong. 

Suddenly, Louis was tired. Weary. He shed his clothes and slid between the cold empty sheets. He didn’t know how long he lay there before sleep took him.  
—-  
An unspecified period of time later, Louis jerked awake with a gasp. The ringing, resounding silence of his empty room was a painful reminder of his solitary state. He exhaled shakily, his face crumpling. his breaths came faster as the undeniable, inescapable knowledge that he was on his own filled his lungs, leaving little room for air. He couldn’t- he had to-. Louis glanced to the side, considered resisting for a moment, then in a burst of movement grabbed his phone from his bedside table and unlocked it. Within seconds, it was pressed to his ear, the dull ringing sounding loud in the cavernous silence.

“‘Llo?”  
A crackling, sleepy voice came from the speakers, immediately soothing the itch of loneliness that scratched at his consciousness. Louis closed his eyes in relief.  
“Lou?” The voice came again, jerking Louis out of his reverie. With the comfort of another’s presence, Louis’ brain kicked back into gear. Along with his sense of embarrassment.  
“Erm”  
“Lou are you ok?”   
He closed his eyes, despairing at himself and his codependency. Liam worried enough at the best of times, he didn’t need Louis calling him at- he pulled the phone away from his ear to check the time- fuck, 4.56am.  
He took a breath.  
“Oh hey Li! Shit mate, I-I, didn’t realise the time I’m so sorry!”  
“Lou why are you awake?” Liam asked quietly.  
“Bloody jet lag I think mate it’s throwing me right off!” Louis babbled, hoping Liam wouldn’t remember that after spending the last week of the tour in France the one hour time difference was unlikely to make any impact, let alone be enough to justify nonsensical early morning calls.   
“Right?” the disbelief was clear in Liam’s voice.  
Louis exhaled and scrubbed his hand over his eyes. He didn’t know why he had called, what he had expected to get out of this conversation.   
“I just-” he began, stiltingly, then stopped.   
A loaded pause.  
“It’s weird not being with you guys!” Louis said with a laugh that sounded forced even to his own ears.   
“Lou,” Liam spoke quietly, “Are you ok?”  
“Yeah! No! I’m fine, all good nothing to worry about, sorry for calling you mate I, I’m just gonna go now mate, I’ll see you, see you soon Li.” Louis’ voice sounded loud, too loud, with the impending silence looming once more.   
“Yeah, you will” Liam said, the tenor of his voice still heavy with sleep.  
“B-bye” Louis stuttered, and hung up the phone before he started begging Liam not to go.

The silence was worse, now. Somehow, it began to represent more than an absence of noise. It became a thing, a being, a personification of everything Louis disliked and feared. Loneliness, abandonment, the usual vices that hide behind the loud and confident and social.   
Louis turned on his side, scrunching up the crisp, white, impersonal sheets between trembling fingers. It was moments like this that he wished he was still at home. Little sisters and a mum who depended on him. No experience of constant company. That way he wouldn’t know what he was missing.   
Louis took a shuddering breath.   
Then.  
A knock on the door.  
Another, and another, increasing in frequency.  
Louis slid out of bed, and down the corridor. He knew he had to be careful, but company was what he craved, and company was what was knocking on the door, in whatever form it came.  
At this point he’d probably invite a crazed fan in for a cuppa and a chat.  
Louis pulled the door open.   
Liam stood, shivering, on the doorstep.  
“Come on Lou, let me in”  
Astounded, Louis stepped aside.  
“But-” Louis began, but Liam had already marched off down the corridor to his bedroom.  
Louis followed.   
“Li-?”   
“Look” Liam began as he tugged the sheets out from their regimentally tucked position, marring the smooth white surface and climbing in.   
“I know you, Louis, and I know when you need me, need someone, ok?”  
Liam hit the pillow until a dent in which he could rest his head was formed and folded the duvet back, inviting Louis in.  
“Now get into bed, and let me get some sleep ok?”   
After a moment of hesitation Louis slid between the now suddenly warm sheets.   
Liam wrapped himself around Louis, fitting the curves and angles of his body against Louis’. A smile spread itself over Louis’ face, as his bed became his own once more. He looked at the sheets that covered their bodies. In the dim light of the bedside lamp the crumples their bodies had made cast shadows in shades of blue over the covers.  
This time, when Louis closed his eyes, sleep pulled heavily at his consciousness, the warmth of Liam’s body and presence leaching through his thin t shirt and manifesting itself as comfort, and security.  
“Thanks” Louis’ words sounded soft despite the quiet that cocooned the two.   
Liam simply squeezed Louis’ waist in reply. 

He didn’t fall asleep, though. Louis drifted off to sleep that night, enveloped in reassurance and care. And if, on the cusp of sleep, the word love attached itself to the feeling, if that impression was to be cemented over the coming months, if that moment was to be the inception of something much bigger and more significant, neither Louis nor Liam could claim awareness or responsibility. Louis just didn’t like being on his own.

**Author's Note:**

> [shameless request for feedback]  
> hope you liked it!  
> Tumblr URL- deadstagram


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